The No Where Apocalypse (Book 4): Searching No Where Page 10

  Pausing, as if he expected sympathy or some other emotion from Violet or me, he shot us another toothy smile.

  “I been working on being a happier person since Victoria left,” he added only managing to look stupid by smiling more. I thought it best to keep the “stupid” part to myself and hoped Violet might show one small morsel of discretion as well.

  “Do you think my smile helps?” he asked Violet directly, stepping towards her. I gave her credit; she sort of held her ground, mostly because she was pinned against a tree from behind.

  “I mean other than my smell and rather large appearance, do I seem like a decent person to you, little lady?” His words came off as completely sincere and sounded as if he really cared about Violet’s opinion. Good luck with that, Magnus.

  We, Magnus and I, waited as Violet’s lips twitched. Her expression was neutral, except for her nose still pinched tightly shut between two fingers. But when she finally released her tight grip, I noticed her expression was something other than bitter.

  “You’re fine,” Violet answered in a rather unconvincing manner to me. Magnus seemed to not notice that it was less than enthusiastic and continued smiling, really more of a grin at that point. “I just think you’d be better off with a different smell. Perhaps something people wouldn’t get a whiff a mile away.”

  They exchanged smiles — his broad and hers small — and I noticed something. Magnus was quite taken with Violet. That was good; I may live to see another sunrise.

  “Care to share a meal?” Magnus asked, licking his lips as I noticed his eyes on our bags. “I promise to sit downwind. I could use a bite, though.”

  Ah yes, women and food. Man’s two greatest needs. And pretty much in that order.

  Magnus didn’t eat all of our supplies, but I’m sure he wanted to. With no time given when I asked about his last meal, I marveled at how he ate.

  Stuffing three pieces of smoked whitefish in his mouth at once, he chewed with great motions. Dried rutabagas and potatoes were more like snack chips to him than essential nourishment. And boy did the food fall from his partially closed lips, decorating the front of his shirt like large snowflakes.

  Violet looked at me at one point, unhappy. “How charming,” she mouthed, rolling her eyes afterward. Magnus couldn’t have heard her words even if she had said them aloud. He was too busy guzzling water, head tipped back as it overflowed down his body. At least he had his own canteen.

  While he wasn’t much of a conversationalist, he did pause from time to time to smile for another few minutes at Violet. While I knew it made her uncomfortable, I liked seeing her that way.

  “Well, I suppose you two have places to go,” he announced, rising from his eating stump. Picking the large crumbs from his shirt, I noticed Violet cringe as he tossed them in his mouth. Ah, dessert. “Something about Beacon Hill, I think you said. I’m heading toward Sleeping Bay myself.”

  “Oh darn,” Violet sighed. “I guess this is where we leave you. Goodbye.” She spun and trotted to retrieve her backpack.

  Magnus inched closer. “You don’t suppose she’d give me a little hug, do ya?” That made me grin. First off, Violet hugging a giant. Secondly, like he ever did anything little. “Been a while since I had a nice hug.” My grin broadened.

  “Oh Violet,” I sang out, “Magnus would like a hug. Come on over and give him one.”

  When she spun on her heels, her disbelief was evident. But I urged her back with a signaling finger and a smile, perhaps a little smirk, too. “He did save our lives; seems like the least you can do for the man.”

  She inched her way back to us, her eyes focused on me the whole way. Yeah, I was going to hear about this later. But for now, I wished I had some sort of camera to record the moment.

  She was absolutely swallowed up by the massive man. If he had tried a little harder, I’m sure she would have completely disappeared, even if only for a minute or two.

  “That’s enough, Magnus,” she snorted, pushing away, likely needing to come up for air.

  “Thank you, darling,” Magus called out as we turned and left.

  “Yes, thank you, darling,” I added in a somewhat mocking tone.

  She clutched my hand, digging a nail into the backside flesh. “You are so dead when we get out of his sight,” she seethed.

  Yeah, I probably was, but what a way to go!

  Day 1,161 - continued

  An hour later, we paused for a break. The good news was I was still alive. The not-so-good news: Violet hadn’t said a word the entire time since our departure from Magnus in the woods.

  As we sipped water and watched gentle waves crash against the shore, I noticed something different. The lake had been angry ever since we’d been in view of it the past week or so. But now, it was almost tranquil. Gone were the grey clouds that hung low most days, replaced by a pale blue sky dotted with wisps of white.

  For the first time since encountering our first fish camp, I found the air felt clean, smelling of pines and dirt instead of rotting fish guts. It brought a pleasant smile to my face.

  “You shouldn’t be happy, you know,” Violet said from nowhere. “Things aren’t as they seem.”

  Yep, my skeptical companion knew just when to spoil the mood.

  “I like how the air smells today,” I replied. “Clean and fresh.”

  Eyeing me through narrowed slits, she sneered. “Come get a whiff of my clothing. I smell like that monster.” Her mood lightened a bit. “We’re going to need to bathe and get our clothes washed at the next camp. And we need to resupply. Magnus the mongrel nearly ate all of our provisions.”

  I nodded. Some of what she said made sense. A warm shower would feel so good, I imagined. And I still had the same clothes on that we started our journey with. But the prospect of gutting another ton of slimy fish made my stomach turn.

  “Maybe they have a chore that doesn’t involve getting covered in fish guts,” I quipped. I looked at her as she chewed on a nail. “You think?”

  When her eyes met mine I knew something else was bothering her. Hopefully it wouldn’t become my problem.

  “We need to talk,” she said, rising from her spot and beginning her usual discussion procession — pacing.

  “Now what?” I answered, perhaps a bit too haughty. I didn’t care. She was about to go on another one of her rants when all I wanted was to enjoy the day.

  “What we just went through back there,” she began, passing on my right and disappearing from my view, “there was something wrong with all of that. Something definitely not right.”

  I didn’t answer aloud and let my shaking head and sour face answer for me.

  “Didn’t you think he was a little too friendly? A little too taken by me?” When I didn’t answer right away, she slapped my shoulder. “Any thoughts?”

  I grinned, peeking up at her looming above me. “Hasn’t seen a pretty girl in a while. You probably made him all tongue-tied, so he babbled like a fool. Maybe that’s most men’s natural reaction to you.”

  Violet seemed to not find the humor in my reply, greeting it with another slap. “Be serious, Bob. You didn’t have to hug him.”

  And I was still thanking God for that. I’m not sure I wanted any contact with a man that large and foul smelling.

  “And he mentioned Beacon Hill like he knew we were headed there,” Violet continued. Her pacing started up again, which meant her slapping might stop. “I didn’t say anything about where we were headed. And I’m pretty sure you didn’t either.”

  She had shifted gears smoothly, transitioning from cynical to paranoid. Great. I needed to slow this rant before it consumed both of us like a forest fire.

  “One of us must have said something,” I countered, peeking at her as she strolled by for the fiftieth time or so. “I mean, otherwise he’d never know. He just couldn’t.”

  Just off to my right, and still in front of me, Violet stopped and spun. Her small fingers cupped and stroked her chin; her lips drawn into a tight, delicat
e line.

  “How many dead bodies did you see?” she asked quietly.

  I glanced at her wide-eyed. “What?”

  “Dead bodies, after the shootout. How many did you see?”

  I almost answered without a thought but paused to recall the scene.

  She came close and knelt beside me. “Right? There should have been four or five. Maybe even six,” she paused and her eyes flashed, “but I only saw one.”

  Impossible. Two men fell directly in front of me. The first was gone when I glanced back to see the second collapse. And I knew two or three more became victims of Magnus’ wrath before the rest ran off.

  “Two in front of me, Peter on the road,” I answered, trying to recall the details. “I saw Joe in the ditch when we left. I thought about checking on him for a minute but then saw the flies. He was dead.” I stared into her narrowed eyes. “Four at least.”

  Taking my hands, she squeezed hard. “You saw the men in the woods, dead?”

  “They had to be there, Violet. Where would they have crawled off to? The woods weren’t dense; hell, it hardly had any cover.”

  Her head moved back and forth in tiny movements. “I looked, and it was as wide open as you remember. But I never saw a body.”

  Again, impossible. “What are you getting at?” I asked, trying to read her mind.

  “What kind of gun did he have?”

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes, rising to wear a deeper path into the ground. “Magnus. What kind of gun did he have?”

  I thought for a moment, then a moment longer. “I don’t know if I ever saw it in his hand, but I heard something between the shots that sounded like a lever action. So maybe a 30-30 like you have. Maybe something a little smaller.”

  She nodded as she paced, again on the prowl. “But you never saw it?”

  I shook away her skepticism. “He must have set it against a tree. Probably wanted to show us how sincere he was about not hurting us.”

  She shrugged as she reached for her pack. “I felt a knife under his shirt when you forced me to hug him. But I never saw a gun anywhere near him.”

  I stood and heaved my pack over my shoulders. “So what does all that mean you suppose? Other than that you may still have an over-active imagination.” I let her see my grin so she’d know the last part was said in moderate jest.

  Itching her nose, she gave me a stern look. “I’m not sure. But I don’t think what we saw was the real story. I think there was something else going on there. Let me think about it.”

  We began walking and I let Violet stew on her fantasy. That meant she wouldn’t be talking for a while. Bonus points for me.

  Day 1,163

  It took another full day of steady walking before the Beacon Hill Fish Camp came into view. Or should I say, smell. A strong northeast breeze let us know we were close long before we saw the white canvas tents flapping in the wind.

  A short distance from the main entrance to the camp, Violet stopped and grabbed my arm. What now? I thought.

  “Okay, we ask about Daisy, sign on for a day’s work…” Her words halted for a few moments as she studied the facility carefully. “Shower, wash our clothes, get a couple of meals and some new supplies. And hopefully a decent bed to sleep on. Got it?”

  I stared at her, tapping my foot. “Sure, Mom. Anything else I’m too stupid to remember?”

  She patted my back, shoving me towards the entrance. “Don’t be snotty. I was just going through the list out loud.”

  “Or treating me like a 10-year-old,” I snarked in a whisper.

  I noticed her grin. Yeah, she’d heard me.

  Beacon Hill Fish Camp was small, nowhere near the size of the larger camps. It was still larger than the dump we’d come across back at Sleeping Bay. But what the place lacked in size was made up for in cleanliness.

  It had the usual stench of the other places. There was, after all, only so much a place could do with its foul remains. But right away, I noticed how neat and clean the gutting and filleting stations were, the knives sharpened to fine edges. Later, Violet told me that the scaling spots were much the same. And she spoke of how happy and friendly the people were.

  Beacon Hill was an oasis of goodness, surrounded by some of the starkest remote forests known to man. And the thieves who lined the way further north, we were told, were twice as bad as any we’d found thus far.

  Violet and I did our assigned jobs until daylight gave way to darkness. If I had to guess, I’d say we worked six, maybe eight hours, but the time passed easily being surrounded by smiles, laughter, people bringing you treats (actual chocolate chip cookies, hadn’t had them in years) and water.

  Though the people were friendly and helpful in any way they could, they’d never heard of anyone who went by the name of Daisy Vaughn, though a couple people remembered someone who looked like her.

  One gal had been at Houghton (just up north and east of the camp) and knew a young blonde woman who was exceedingly nice. My heart raced as she spoke about her, describing someone who matched Daisy to a tee. Until the part of the five kids came up. ‘Not my woman,’ I told her.

  Violet ran into a man who seemed helpful. He’d worked with a woman who sounded like Daisy over in Traverse Bay, some 30 miles just a little north and east of Beacon Hill. Violet and I exchanged giddy grins as he described her perfectly.

  “And when did you come here, sir?” Violet asked in her nicest tone, stroking the older fellow’s arm as an added gesture of kindness.

  “Oh,” he replied, playing with his long gray whiskers, “I came here in July. So it was probably May or June.”

  I watched as Violet’s face fell before she thanked the man for his time. I was far too sucker-punched to moan a reaction.

  “We’ll keep trying, Bob,” she urged. “Please don’t give up hope. We need to keep moving forward.”

  Hope? The only Hope I knew of at that point was most likely screaming her tiny lungs out — some three days walk due south. All other hope was nothing more than a fading ember in my soul.

  A day later, I waited for Violet at our agreed-upon spot — right next to the mess tent. Sipping on what they called coffee (I referred to it as boiled tree bark), I chatted with a couple new acquaintances I’d made in our day and a half in Beacon Hill.

  We turned our heads in unison as we picked up on a fight nearby. As our conversation died, I listened carefully. If it was a fight, I decided, it was awfully one-sided. As far as I could tell, there was only one person doing all of the shouting. Unfortunately, I recognized the voice right away.

  I trotted to the wash tent, discovering Violet waving her hands above her head. The older woman on the receiving end of her wrath saw me coming and sighed.

  “Problem?” I asked, standing beside Violet. Holy cow, was her face red. I didn’t remember ever seeing her that upset. It had to be something serious.

  Shoving me with her right palm, she began her verbal assault anew. This time on me.

  “You’re damned right there’s a problem here,” she seethed, getting right up in my face. “And you’d better help solve it, and I mean right now.”

  Because Violet’s hair was pulled back into a thick ponytail, I noticed that even her ears were bright red. I assumed the wrong was something even I might find to be a major offense.

  “What do you need?” I asked, placing my hands on her shaking shoulders to steady her. This amount of anger had normally been reserved for me. I couldn’t even fathom how bad things must have been.

  Violet spun and thrust a finger at the woman. “This idiot won’t help find my clean clothes!”

  Nodding slightly, I waited for more. When it didn’t come, I felt my eyes open larger. “And this is the problem?” I asked. “This is why you’re all out of sorts, screaming like a little girl?”

  Rising on her toes, she came nose to nose with me. “They lost both sets of my clothes. What am I supposed to wear?”

  I pushed her aside and addressed the patient woman
. “Can we just look again for Violet’s clothes? We really need to get going and I know for a fact that she won’t budge an inch until she has them.” There, simple enough. Perhaps if someone didn’t use such a nasty tone all the time…

  The woman shrugged and smiled, first at me and then at my ugly partner.

  “Like I told your missus,” she explained, “they ain’t here. Maybe they got handed to someone else by accident, or maybe they got burned with some old threadbare stuff. But we don’t have anything here like she described…” she eyed Violet up and down for a moment, “or in such a petite size.”

  Shit. Shit. Super shit. I was about to get blasted and there was nothing I could do to prevent it.

  “And your clever response?” Violet asked, whispering into my ear. I swatted her away.

  My eyes sought the wash lady’s, begging without words. “Can we please look again?” Her head shook slightly. “Please? Don’t make me beg.” Which I was.

  “You people,” she spewed, turning to dig through piles of washed clothes one more time.

  Please dear God, I prayed. Please let her find them. Please.

  Day 1,165

  We moved at a fairly slow pace for several hours. I walked, Violet stomped. I had to give her credit; she’d kept it up for quite a while.

  “Are you going to be moody all day, Grandma?” I asked, fighting back a chuckle.

  Next to me she came to a halt, her hands shooting to her hips in tiny fists. I eyed them carefully.

  “This nice outfit was once a shirt for one of those lovelies,” Violet said, squeezing her eyes tightly shut. “It’s all they had.”

  Suppressing a fit of giggles, I studied the outfit. She had her old sneakers still, and the socks she’d kept when she turned in her clothes to be washed. But the formerly bright, multi-colored top hung on her like a sheet. And not some tiny single bed sheet; a kinged-sized sheet.